View to Independence Hall

Looking south

Standing on Race Street, look down the Mall to Independence Hall. Around you are colonnades (thirteen arches in each), which flank this segment of the Mall. Less than two score years ago, the very mall we are walking on was once crowded with commercial and industrial buildings — many quite rundown and seedy. The Cradle of Liberty was crowded in on all sides, hardly visible unless one was upon it. Between 1953, when the state began razing the old buildings, until 1966 when it was officially finished, the Mall — under the supervision of the General State Authority — took shape. One block south is a fountain - dedicated in 1955 to Judge Edwin O. Lewis, one of the idealists who had vision enough to see and work toward this goal as early as World War II. He was a founder of the Independence Hall Association, your hosts on this virtual tour.